Monday was spent pottering
around and going for walks and the canal was eerily quiet. I didn’t see a single boat on the move all
day and then realised that half term was over and that, traditionally, signals
the end of the summer boating season. From now
until March all will be quiet on the cut and boat movements will mainly be
limited to people like us with the odd hire boater over the Christmas period. We love both seasons; the hustle and bustle
and meeting lots of people during the summer months and the solitude and
peacefulness of being one of the few boats on the move during the winter.
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The quiet pound we are
moored in this week
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When Karen came home from
work on Monday we went into Leam for the evening to celebrate my birthday, albeit a bit late. We had a meal and then went to the art deco assembly
rooms to see Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his band; he’s an American blues/rock
guitarist/singer – Karen had bought tickets for my birthday present. It was a great night but Karen felt a bit like
I did at a girly concert. There were
very few women in the crowd, the reverse to when we saw Take That a few years
ago where, apart from gay guys, I felt as if I was the only guy in the whole of
Wembley 😉
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| My daughter Lauren thought I was the bassist! |
I always enjoy reading
Aileen’s blog and it occurred to me that, apart from the fact they are cruising
in France, the main difference in our writing is that she doesn’t hold
back. Even though she knows her mother
reads the blog, she’s not shy about mentioning the amount of alcohol she and
Mike get through or using flowery language.
Maybe I’m wrong and that is her holding back, but I thought of her when
I was about to write that everything went tits up on Tuesday morning.
I got up from the sofa to
get a second cup of coffee and, bang, my lower back pinged. Oh no! I didn’t want to face another few
weeks of incapacity. Anyway, to cut
a long story short I have been very good and spent the week mainly on my back
and this morning I can walk without being doubled over. Hopefully we have caught it early this time.
Apart from doing puzzles
and reading I spent some time musing over our use of social media. Karen and I only use Facebook and, even
though she has an account we both tend to share mine. When I used to work I worked at many
different companies and when I left each one I moved on without exchanging
contact details. There was one
exception, my closest friend John and his wife Heather used to work with me
back in the 1970s and we have kept in touch ever since. This all changed with Facebook and I have a
lot of Facebook friends from Legal & General, the last company I worked
at.
Some people find social
media friendships a bit weird but I have enjoyed keeping in touch with my
L&G friends and we even have the odd phone conversation which would have
been unheard of in previous times.
I mention all this because
I used to work with the couple who are popping over this afternoon. They are looking at living on their boat like
we do and want to pick our brains about the life. Before Facebook they wouldn’t have been able to
get in touch, but as we are ‘social media friends’ they could, and we now realise
we have shared interests. It’s just the
same with Mike and Lesley from Cropredy; Lesley and I worked together at L&G and never
really socialised until we realised, years later, that we had the shared interest of
boating.
This coming weekend is
when the canal closures start in support of winter maintenance. As we intend to cruise around the south of
Birmingham for the next couple of months we need to get into position this
weekend. There is a lift bridge ahead of
us at Shirley that closes on Monday so we will need to get past that. We will then be stuck until Christmas on a
lock-free stretch for several miles between the top of Tardebigge and the
centre of Birmingham.
Talking about closures, a
boating friend got in touch with me yesterday.
She has just completed the purchase of a mooring on the River Avon in
Evesham and was looking forward to getting down there to tidy it up over the
next few weeks. She has just realised
she can’t get her boat down there until the end of February because of the maintenance
closures on the river ☹
After today, Karen only
has 18 weeks left at work before we’re off travelling properly again. When we were having dinner out on Monday
evening we did toy with the idea of popping down to London first before heading
North. As much as it would be great to
cruise around London again, we decided against it as it would mean a 300-odd
lock and 300-odd mile detour before we were back in the same place ready to
head North.
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| On our first walk this morning - not much of a picture but it's the only one I've taken since Monday - I do feel sorry for myself don't I? |
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